Archbishop calls for talks between US and North Korea

Published: 11 August 2017

The United States and North Korea must return to the negotiating table and focus on improving the quality of life of their people rather than on the might of their advanced weaponry, said a former Vatican diplomat, CNS/NCR reports.

In an interview with Vatican Radio on Wednesday, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, former Vatican representative to UN agencies in Geneva, said that "instead of building walls and creating dissidence or admitting the possibility of recourse to violence," both countries must have a constructive approach that benefits the people.

"To arrive at this point, we need to change, in a lot of ways, the public culture and insist and educate that the way forward is not the way of having the latest military technology, but having an approach of inclusion and participation in building the common good of the global human family," Archbishop Tomasi said.

North Korea's nuclear ambitions have led to further isolation and sanctioning by the international community, leading to a war of words with the United States.

President Donald Trump vowed that if North Korea continued to threaten the US, "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

Angered by the threat, the North Korean government, led by dictator Kim Jong Un, said it is considering firing nuclear-armed missiles at Guam, a US territory in the Pacific and home to two US military bases.

The nuclear threat North Korea poses to the region "creates serious difficulties," Archbishop Tomasi said. However, the US and its allies in the region must continue the path toward an inclusive negotiated solution that places the common good first.

"As the Holy Father insists: The way forward is that of dialogue and of including everyone in negotiating – accommodating as far as possible – the participation of all the populations and their governments in the search of the common good and of ways of improving the quality of life of the people."